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DTRA’s advancements in nuclear and radiological detection
A new, more complex nuclear age has begun. Echoing the tensions of the Cold War amid rapidly evolving nuclear and radiological threats, preparedness in the modern age is a contest of scientific innovation. The Research and Development Directorate (RD) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is charged with winning this contest.
Rufus Neame, Paul Cosgrove
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 200 | Number 1 | March 2026 | Pages S105-S121
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2394729
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An enhanced implementation of the random ray method (TRRM), a stochastic adaptation of the method of characteristics, is presented. This implementation generalizes from a traditional flat source (FS) approximation to a linear source (LS) approximation, and from the standard isotropic scattering approximation to an anisotropic approximation, up to P3. On the two-dimensional C5G7 benchmark, LS alone enables a 1.4× and 1.7× enhancement in run time for parallel and serial executions, respectively, without compromising accuracy. Further testing on the three-dimensional C5G7 Rodded B benchmark demonstrates that LS enables significant axial coarsening and reduction in ray populations. This results in a 5.3× speedup in run time while still offering comparable accuracy. On the Babcock and Wilcox 1484 Core II benchmark, incorporating anisotropic scattering in TRRM up to P3 with a FS decreased keff errors (~110 pcm) and maximum and average pin power errors. LS with anisotropic scattering (LSPN), showed similarly improved keff errors while benefiting from a coarser mesh. The linear isotropic flat anisotropic (LIFA) method, relative to LSPN, offers further run time and memory savings of 4.1× and 1.6×, respectively, for P3, while maintaining comparable accuracy to anisotropic FS on more refined meshes.